The Arduino Zero Is Unveiled

The first prototypes of the Arduino Zero will be on display at the Maker Faire May 17-18 the San Mateo Event Center.

I first started working with Arduino microcontroller development platforms last year in the form of the Rainbowduino Arduino-compatible system from Seeed Studio, which powered my 4x4x4 tri-color 3D LED cube.

Since that time, I've become a huge supporter of the Arduino, from the concept to the hardware to the software (IDE) to the ecosystem. I'm now using Arduinos and Arduino-compatible platforms for all sorts of projects, including my Infinity Mirror, my Inamorata Prognostication Engine, and my BADASS Display.

Along the way, I've used Arduino Unos and Arduino Megas, both of which are powered by Atmel processors. I'm poised to start using a chipKIT Max32, which is powered by a MIPS processor from Microchip. I'm also looking at a Teensy 3.1, which boasts a Kinetis processor from Freescale.

Each Arduino and Arduino-compatible platform offers different features, functions, capacities, and capabilities, which makes it possible to select the optimal platform for the project at hand using criteria such as size, cost, performance, and number of input/output pins.

As of this morning, there's a new kid on the block -- the Arduino Zero, which has been jointly developed by Atmel and Arduino.

The 3.3V Arduino Zero has the same form factor as the 5V Arduino Uno but is powered by Atmel's SAMD21 MCU, which boasts a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ core. (The Atmel ATmega328, featuring an eight-bit AVR core running at 16MHz, powers the Uno).

When I first posted this column, I said:

The Arduino Zero's processor also boasts 32 Kbytes of flash and 4 Kbytes of SRAM. (I'm not sure about the clock speed.)

These memory numbers were based on the fact that the original press release said 256kb (kbits) of flash and 32kb of SRAM. As you will see if you read the comment threads below, I subsequently discovered that the Arduino Zero actually boasts 256 Kbytes of Flash and 32 Kbytes of SRAM, which are much more respectable quantities. Also, I subsequently discovered that the Zero's clock speed is 48MHz, which is 3X that of the Arduino Uno.

I hear that the first prototypes of the Arduino Zero will be on display at the Maker Faire, which will take place in the San Mateo Event Center May 17-18. If you are fortunate enough to be attending the Maker Faire, make sure you check the Zero out at the Arduino booth (No. 204), the Atmel booth (No. 205), or the ARM booth (No. #405). Take pictures of everything -- the Maker Faire in general and the Zero in particular -- and email them to me at max.maxfield@ubm.com.

I started using the AVR microcontrollers in '99; only a couple of years after they were first released. Heck I still own a few AT90S2313 chips that were obsoleted oh so long ago. In the years that followed, I witnessed how AVR micros increased in popularity and became widely used in both the commercial and hobbyist realms. As an undergrad, I remember making a case to one of my Professors to switch the microcontroller used in our robotics course from the really cool but EPROM based PIC16C74a to the AT90S8535. Indeed the following year the course was based on the AVR chip.

I witnessed the rise of the Arduino platform (Based on the AVR micro) from its early days. I realized I wasn't the target audience since I was already steeped in the AVR platform and could program it in assembly and low level C to my hearts content, but found it amazing how the Arduino platform enabled so many to dabble with microcontrollers in an affordable way.

I recently took a look at the ATSAM D21 specifications and I'm convinced this is the ideal device that will carry the Arduino platform into the next decade or two. It's 32-bit Cortex-M0+ based, low power consumption, low cost with excellent bang for buck, fast (48MHz) but not crazy fast, plenty of Flash and RAM, plenty of easy to use peripherals (GPIO/Timers/UART/SPI/I2C/USB/DMA), and even comes in easy to solder 0.8mm pitch 32-LQFP packages (along with 48/64 QFP 0.5mm pitch).

The Arduino Zero builds on this chip and seems to even have an EDBG chip (that weird looking QFN? chip next to the 48-LQFP ATSAM D21) onboard that will hopefully give the board debug capabilities. This would make it the first Arduino board with an onboard debugger; a great tool not just for hobbyists but professionals and university students as well! The board seems to have a second USB port...probably for USB Device/Host functionality which the the ATSAM D21 supports.

The SAM D21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit has similar functionality (onboard EDBG and a larger ATSAM D21 chip) and goes for $39. Based on that, I predict that the Arduino Zero will probably sell for $30-35...about the same cost of an AVR based Arduino. All of these features coupled with great IDE's such as the Arduino IDE and the more feature rich Atmel Studio IDE is destined to make this Arduino board a winner!

I'm currently an educator myself and I use the AVR microcontroller in my Embedded Systems courses. I look forwards to a time when I can migrate to the SAM D21 / Arduino Zero in the near future!

The original press release about the Arduino Zero from Atmel said 256kb of Flash and 32kb or SRAM. I understood "kb" to mean "kilobits" because the common convention is to use uppercase 'B' to represent bytes (e.g., 256KB).

Based on this, in my column I said that the Arduino Zero has 32KB (kilobytes) of Flash and 4KB of SRAM.

However, the Zero Page on the Arduino.cc website actually says 256KB of Flash and 32KB of SRAM. I must admit that -- assuming KB to mean kilobytes, this does make a lot more sense to me.